Pitanje prostora i eksperimentiranje s demokracijom nerazdvojni su
Intervju sa Michaelom Hardtom
Question of space and experimentation with democracy go together
Interview with Michael Hardt
15.08.2012.
Michael Hardt profesor je književnosti na sveučilištu Duke u SAD-u te, s Antonijem Negrijem, koautor knjiga Imperij, Mnoštvo i Commonwealth. U intervjuu razgovaramo o demokratskom kapacitetu kod pokreta zauzimanja trgova, njihovoj povezanosti s prostorom grada, ali i vezama između tih ideja i aktualnih radničkih i borbi za zajednički prostor u Hrvatskoj.
Michael Hardt is a professor in the literature program on Duke University in USA and co-author of books Empire, Multitude and Commonwealth together with Antonio Negri. The interview discusses the democratic capacity of occupy movements, their relation to space of the city, but it also links these notions with current struggles happening in Croatia.
Španjolska je jučer, 15. svibnja, obilježila godišnjicu pokreta 15M, a Madrid se ponovno masovno mobilizirao. Čini se zanimljivim da, umjesto da pokušaju pronaći neko tehničko rješenje za financijsku krizu, ljudi je odbijaju i suprotstavljaju se zahtijevajući demokraciju. Vrlo brzo, kroz možda godinu ili dvije, pojam financijske krize transformiran je u krizu predstavničke demokracije. Otkud taj pomak?
Mislim da je gotovo svakome jasno da se pokušaji rješavanja krize s još više neoliberalizma, poput povećanja kontrole ili privatnog vlasništva, čine idiotskim. Traženje rješenja za krizu nekom vrstom kejnzijanskog ili socijalističkog odgovora, tj. investiranjima u javno vlasništvo, također se čini neučinkovitim i zastarjelim. Ovo novo eksperimentiranje, koje nije ni javno ni privatno, čini se stoga logičnim ishodom. Na primjer, zauzimanje trgova je put k ponovnom preuzimanju i drugačijem upravljanju javnim prostorom. Puerta del Sol u Madridu je javni prostor, ali umjesto da gradska ili državna administracija donosi odluke o upravljanju njime, ljudi su ga zauzeli te sami razvili mehanizme za sudjelovanje, za donošenje odluka i konstruiranje vlastite zajednice. Dakle, prva posljedica pokreta zauzimanja trgova je postavljanje pitanja upravljanja prostorom u središte rasprave, a druga je, kao što ste i sami primijetili, pitanje demokracije. Smatram da je u alter-globalizacijskim pokretima otprije desetak godina u fokusu bilo pitanje pravde te su se često u SAD-u nazivali "Globalni pokreti za pravdu". Sad je, počevši od 2011. godine, došlo do premještanja fokusa s pravde na pitanje demokracije, a moguće je da su pokreti u Europi preuzeli, a potom i transformirali pokrete iz Sjeverne Afrike i s Bliskog istoka, koji su prvi odaslali ove pozive za demokracijom.
Yesterday (15th May) it was the anniversary of the 15M movement in Spain and there was a big mobilization in Madrid again. It seems interesting that instead of trying to find some technical solution for the financial crises, people oppose it or reject it with democratic demands. In a very short period of time, in maybe a year or two, the notion of financial crisis was immediately transferred into a crisis of representative democracy. How did this shift emerge?
I think it is clear to almost everyone that responding to the crisis with more neoliberalism, like responding to the crises with greater control of private property, seems idiotic. And responding to the crisis with a kind of Keynesian or socialist response, with investments in public property, also seems outdated and ineffective. So this new experimentation which is neither public nor private seems a very logical outcome. For example, occupied squares are ways of reclaiming public space and managing it differently. Puerta del Sol in Madrid is a public space, but rather than the city or state administration making decisions on how to manage that space, occupants were themselves constructing participatory mechanisms for making decisions and constructing their own community. So, the first consequence of the occupied movements is developing the greater focus on management of space, the second is, as you suggested, a question of democracy. I think that one of the primary concepts in the alter-globalization movement some ten years ago was about justice, and often in the US that was called the “Global justice movement”. Now, there has been a shift from focus on justice to a question of democracy starting in 2011. It is possible that the calls for democracy in the movements in the North Africa and the Middle East were taken up and perhaps even transformed by those movements in Europe.
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Svijet je progovorio (Martha Rosler)
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STVARANJE NOVIH OBLIKA DEMOKRACIJE
Često pokrete zauzimanja trgova nazivate "istinskim konstitutivnim procesom"?
Ti različiti pokreti zauzimanja javnih gradskih trgova, eksperimentirajući s demokratskim formama, pokušavaju razviti mehanizme kolektivnog i otvorenog donošenja odluka. Konstitutivni proces također podrazumijeva stvaranje institucija, odnosno ponavljajućih praksi koje mogu produžiti vijek samog događaja. Proteklih deset godina, iz perspektive sudionika i aktivista tadašnjih događanja, postojalo je veliko unutarnje nezadovoljstvo činjenicom da se mnoge nevjerojatne i predivne stvari mogu dogoditi danas, a već sutra nestati.
Prema tome, premještanje fokusa na konstitutivnu prirodu pokreta, što bih čak okarakterizirao kao izgradnju institucija, bio je sljedeći nužni korak. No, pitanje je kako postići trajanje, učiniti nešto kontinuiranim. Neodlučan sam kad koristim riječ institucija budući da ne mislim na stvaranje neke fiksne, nepromjenjive birokracije, već na promišljanje institucije kao što to čine antropolozi, institucije kao ponavljane prakse, poput rodbinskih veza ili, jednostavno, stvaranja stabilnih međuljudskih odnosa.
Dakle, dvije stvari koje me interesiraju pod pojmom konstitutivnog procesa su: demokratska odluka da se stvore participativne forme i pokušaj produženog trajanja tih formi. Ne da bi se nešto učinilo fiksnim, već kontinuiranim procesom. Smatram da tu imamo temelj na kojem možemo graditi novi stupanj inovacije.
Kontinuirana borba podsjeća nas na studentski štrajk u Hrvatskoj koji je započeo 2009. godine. Studenti su zauzeli sveučilišne zgrade zahtijevajući besplatno obrazovanje za sve, istovremeno uvodeći novu metodu borbe kao što su dnevni zborovi, koje su nazvali plenumima.
Iz tog su se plenuma razvile brojne skupine aktivne u širenju direktne demokracije na druga mjesta sukoba. Mnogi radnici sad koriste radničke savjete kao bolji oblik organizacije od sindikata. Čini se da se pojam direktne demokracije zaista sa sveučilišta proširio i na druga područja, a potom stvorio i nove navike.
I u Europi, i u SAD-u, svakom "dobrom" ljevičaru (mislim pritom na ciničnu osobu) demokracija se činila kao zastarjeli ili iskvaren i neupotrebljiv koncept. Tako je čak i poruka "Democracia real YA!" (Prava demokracija – sad!), odaslana tijekom pokreta 15M, mnogim aktivistima zvučala poprilično naivno. Ovi novi pokreti obnovili su raspravu o demokraciji, tj. vratili su demokraciju na dnevni red. Taj novi fokus, naravno, i dalje uključuje pravdu, ali naglasak borbe više nije na tome što je pravedno, već na stvaranju demokratskih formi. To se često odvijalo na veoma malim mjestima, primjerice kada 300-tinjak ljudi koji su zauzeli trg na njemu i donosi demokratske odluke, ali ponekad je takve skupove činilo i preko pet tisuća ljudi, koji su na isti takav način eksperimentirali s demokracijom. Htio bih ovdje naglasiti sljedeće posljedice: pojačani fokus na prostor i naglasak na eksperimentiranju s demokracijom. To su dvije najvažnije posljedice borbi i pokreta zauzimanja nastalih u 2011. godini, a čini se da te posljedice uvijek idu zajedno.
INVENTING DEMOCRATIC FORMS
You often call the occupy movement a “genuine constituent process”.
These different encampments are experimentation with democratic forms that are trying to construct mechanisms of collective and open decision making. But the constituent process also emphasizes constructing institutions or at least the repeated practices that can extend the longevity of the event.
From the perspective of participation and activist of the events, over the last 10 years, there was a lot of internal dissatisfaction with the fact that many incredible and wonderful things can be done one day and disappear the next. Thus, focusing on the constituent nature, or I would think of it even as institution building, was a necessary next step. But the question here is: how to make something durable, how to make it last and how to make it continuous? I am hesitant when I say the word institution because I do not mean creating some fixed bureaucracy that's unchanging, but rather thinking about institution as the anthropologist would talk about them – institutions as repeated practices, like kinship networks, or simply constructing stable relationships with people.
So, two things I am interested in the notion of constituent process are: democratic decision of making participatory forms and - the attempt to extend in time. Not to make something fixed but to make them into a continuous process. I think there we have a ground on which we can build a new level of innovation.
Struggle that extends in time reminds us of student strike in Croatia that started in 2009. Students occupied university buildings demanding free education for all, and also implemented new method of struggle such as the daily assemblies which they called “plenum”. From this “plenum” many groups emerged that are now active in spreading direct democracy into other places of conflict. Many workers are now using workers councils as a better form of organization than the unions. So, in this sense it seems that this notion of direct democracy has really expanded from what was happening in the universities to a broader territory and hence created new habits.
In both Europe and the United States, for any “good” leftist (meaning cynical person) democracy seemed like an outdated concept or corrupted and unusable one, so even this notion, or slogan: “Democracia real. Ya!” - Real democracy. Now! – launched by the 15M movement, for many activists just sounded naive. What the new movements had done was that they renewed the discussion about the democracy, or put the democracy on the agenda. That new focus does still include justice, of course, but rather than focusing on what is just, inventing democratic forms became an accent of the struggle. These often took form of inventing democratic forms in very small spaces, making a democratic decision when we have 300 people occupying the square, but sometimes as many as 5000 people in a general assembly, and experimenting with that to make a relationship to democracy.
Consequences that I am pointing out here are: the increased focus on space and the accent placed on the experimentation with democracy. Those are two most important consequences of the cycle of struggles and encampments that were born in 2011. And it seems they always go together.
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"Napustite svaku stranku vi koji ulazite" - studentski protest u Rijeci
"Abandon all parties, you who enter here" - student occupation in Rijeka, Croatia
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TRANSVERZALNE BORBE
Zanima nas međusobna povezanost borbi unutar grada te način na koji se njihov radijus širi. Kao ilustracija može poslužiti primjer uništene tekstilne tvornice Kamensko u Zagrebu: radnici su krenuli u štrajk zbog neisplaćenih plaća, a studenti su im pružili podršku u borbi. Kroz komunikaciju s radnicima i uz pomoć informacija do kojih su uspjeli doći zaključili su da je korijen problema zapravo špekuliranje nekretninama tvornice. Zatim su povezali radnike s Pravom na grad, inicijativom već angažiranom u nekim drugim borbama, gdje se također radilo o špekuliranju zemljištem. Od tada je pobuna prešla na novi, općenitiji stupanj koji je omogućio i drugim grupama i građanima da je primijete, da se uključe i, u konačnici, da se razviju nova savezništva i oblikuje zajednički jezik.
Ponekad se ljudi bore, dožive poraz i idu doma. Međutim vi mi dajete sve te primjere ljudi koji se bore s jednim, a nakon poraza završe boreći se s nečim drugim. To su transverzalne borbe. Ponekad su borbe paralelne i ljudi se među njima mogu kretati. Ako pukne jedan čvor mreže, oni su već vidjeli druge mreže. Moć i kontinuitet tih borbi leži i u činjenici da oni stvaraju teritorij njegovim zauzimanjem, a tada je izazov proširiti ta zauzimanja tako da ih ukorijenjenost u određenom mjestu ne ograničava. Pokreti zauzimanja održani tijekom prošle godine istovremeno su i lokalni i transnacionalni, a ono što je zanimljivo je da svoj uspjeh duguju upravo svom sjedilačkom karakteru. Kao nekakva solidarnost koja se širi od mjesta do mjesta, poput jeke. Dakle, imate situaciju gdje nešto krene iz vrlo specifičnog političkog i društvenog pitanja u Egiptu te se proširi do Španjolske gdje se transformira putem nešto izmijenjenih zahtjeva, a ipak djeluju na istoj frekvenciji, onoj solidarnih vibracija koje ih prevode i pojačavaju. Na neki način zamišljam napredak borbe kao kružnu putanju koja seže od jednog do drugog područja. Pitam se je li to način na koji su ove borbe u Hrvatskoj izrasle u, kako sam ih nazvao, transverzalne borbe. Razlog zbog kojeg se toliko koncentriram na to je što, iako su te borbe zauzimanja trgova puno moćnije jer su ukorijenjene u teritoriju, postoji rizik da one nemaju zajedničko globalno stajalište. Znate, postoji rizik kratkovidne prirode nacionalnog. Oni izvana mogli bi reći „ah pokret 15M, pa to je samo španjolski problem“, ili, recimo, „stvar u Grčkoj je još specifičnija“.
Treba postojati intelektualni rad koji se bavi prepoznavanjem načina na koji su različite borbe povezane. Već kod borbi u Zagrebu, Puli ili Dubrovniku možemo primijetiti da su veoma slične i da se vjerojatno obraćaju istim privatnim i državnim interesima, neprijatelji su im vrlo slični. Ipak, to zahtijeva neku vrstu pedagoške artikulacije interesa različitih inicijativa, studenata i ostalih. Zanima me stoga koliko vaš rad uključuje pedagogiju. Šetnje koje ste organizirali u Puli čine mi se kao neka vrsta javnog podučavanja.
Ne bismo to nazvali pedagogijom. Više je nalik Ranciereovom "učitelju neznalici". Mi također otkrivamo stvari zajedno s ljudima s kojima pokušavamo surađivati. Prije se radi o razmjeni nego o pedagogiji, osnovna ideja bila je napraviti "s" ljudima, a ne "za" ljude. Tim šetnjama prethodila je karta nazvana "Park malih otkrića", kao park koji tek treba otkrivati na području bivše vojne zone Monumenti. Karta je sadržavala toponime koji su istovremeno bili i postojeći i fikcionalni. Zapravo smo samo otvorili vrata tog zatvorenog područja i prozvali ga parkom, kao mjestom gdje su radovi završeni i svi smo pozvani istražiti ga. Poigrali smo se s postojećom paradigmom arhitekata kao onih koji donose rješenja na način da smo predstavili kao „projekt“ nešto što već odavno postoji. Postoji, ali je zabranjeno. Bilo je to kolektivno istraživanje, jednodnevni susret kroz otkrivanje.
Možda je ono što brojni pokreti danas uče zapravo moć bivanja zajedno u dužem, trajnijem, dugoročnijem vremenskom periodu. Baš zato trebamo teritorij, prostor trga, na primjer. Pokretima zauzimanja trgova često se spočitava da nemaju koherentnu poruku, ali ne radi se toliko o poruci koliko o susretu, koji nije tek jednodnevni, već trajniji susret. Jedna od značajnijih razlika između pokreta zauzimanja koji su krenuli 2011. i pokreta otprije desetak godina jest ta da su alter-globalizacijski pokreti bili nomadski, seleći se od okupljanja do okupljanja. Današnji protesti su sjedilački, ukorijenjeni su u teritorij. U biti, ne samo da se ne miču, oni se ne žele maknuti! To je njihova bit. Dijelom to znači fokusiranje na veoma specifična lokalna pitanja poput otplate hipoteke na vlastite stanove, studenata koji ne mogu na fakultet, vodoopskrbe, sva vrlo lokalna i specifična pitanja. Na taj način se sve razvilo u vrlo prostorno pitanje, radi se o upravljanju trgom koje istovremeno predstavlja upravljanje gradom.
Na neki se način ponovno srećemo. Skoro kao ponovljena agora.
Sviđa mi se ovo „ponovno“, to je ono o čemu govorim kad pričam o institucijama, to je mjesto na koje se možemo vratiti. Mjesto na koje se svatko može vratiti.
TRANSVERSAL STRUGGLES
What interest us are the interconnections of struggles within the city and the way they expand the radius of the fight. To illustrate it with an example of a destroyed textile factory Kamensko in Zagreb: the workers there went on strike due to unpaid wages and student activists were the first in to support the struggle. Through communication with the workers and some other information that they had access to, they realized that the root of the problem was in fact the speculation over the factory real-estate. After that, they connected them with The Right to the City, a movement already involved in several fights over land speculations. From then on the rebellion came to a new, more general level thus making it possible for other groups and citizens to take notice, join, and subsequently create new alliances, thus forming a common language.
Sometimes people struggle, they are defeated and then they all go home. You are giving me all these examples of people that are struggling with something and then they are defeated and then they end up struggling with something else. These are transversal struggles. They are sometimes parallel and people can move among them. If one node of the network fails, they have already seen the other networks. Its power and its continuity are linked to the construction of territory, but then the challenge is to spread those occupations so they don't get closed in by specific territorial limitations. In last year, the encampments, they were both local and trans-national at the same time, and what is interesting they managed to do that by residence. Like some sympathetic vibration, it’s as if they have found an echo. So you have a situation where something passes from this very specific political and social question in Egypt and spreads to Spain with its different kind of regime, and in many ways different demands, and yet they find this same kind of resonance, or a sympathetic vibration that amplifies it and translates it. In a way I imagine the progression of cycle of struggles from one territory to another. I am wondering if that is the way that these, that I called, transversal struggles in Croatia came to be.
The reason I am focusing on this so much is that, although these encampment struggles are more powerful because they are rooted in the territory, there is the risk that they don't have the same global standpoint. You know there's a risk of a national myopic nature. Those on the outside can say, oh the 15M movement, well that’s just a Spanish problem, and the Greek thing is even more specific…
You have to have this intellectual work of recognizing how different struggles are connected. Already with the struggles in Zagreb, Pula or Dubrovnik we can see that they are very similar and probably address the same private and state interest, I mean the enemies are very similar. But still, that requires a kind of a pedagogical articulation on behalf of different initiatives, students and such… I am curious how much of your work involves pedagogy? Like the walking tours in Pula which seem to me a kind of public pedagogy.
We wouldn't call it pedagogy. It is more like Rancière's “ignorant school master”. We also discover things together with people we are trying to connect with. It’s an exchange rather than pedagogy and the basic idea was to do “with” not “for”... These walking tours you are talking about were preceded by a map called “Park of Small Discoveries”, as a park which is still to be discovered. The map had toponyms that were both real and fictional. So, our design strategy here was just to open the door of this closed off area and declare it a park, as a place where all the construction work has already been done and we are all invited to explore. We were playing with the existing paradigm that architects are the ones bringing solutions, but we presented the project that was already there. Existing but closed. So we made a collective exploration, a one-day encounter in discovering.
Maybe what a lot of movements are learning today is the power of being together over the extended period of time. That is why we need this territory, this space of a square for example. The occupied movement is often criticized because they do not have a coherent message, but it’s less about the message than the encounter, and it’s just not a one-day encounter, but an extended one.
One of the remarkable differences between the occupations and encampments that started in 2011, from the movements from ten years ago, was that alter-globalization movements were fundamentally nomadic, moving from summit to summit. New occupations and encampments have been sedentary, rooted in the territory. And in fact, not only do they not move, they refuse to move. That's their point. In part that means focusing on very specific local issues about people not being able to pay their mortgages on their apartment, about students not being able to go to university, about water issues, all of very local and specific issues. So this is the way in which it all developed into a spatial question, you know, it meant managing the square, but also managing the city.
In a way we are meeting again. It’s almost like an agora again.
I like this notion of again, it’s what I am talking about when I am talking about the institution, it’s the place you can return to. It’s the place that anyone can return to.
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Građani ulaze u zatvoreno vojno područje u Puli, 2007 (foto: Dejan Štifanić)
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Citizens entering closed military area in Pula, 2007 (photo: Dejan Štifanić)
ZAJEDNIČKO – NOVI NAČINI UPRAVLJANJA RESURSIMA
Ponekad se prostor grada koristi kao mjesto mobilizacije jer nam je to zapravo jedino preostalo. Mediji odašilju jednostrane informacije vladajućih, kao i institucije ili stranke, i zato nam treba „prostor pojavnosti“ gdje nas se može vidjeti i čuti. Na primjer, protest ispred ulaza u tvornicu ili sveučilišta nužan je jer ono što se odvija unutar zgrade se ne primjećuje. Istovremeno, danas se u Hrvatskoj, nakon 20 godina privatizacije, čini kao da je zemlja jedino preostalo dobro koje se može privatizirati. U takvoj situaciji naše su aktivnosti uglavnom fokusirane na prostor, zemlju, materijalne resurse i probleme oko njihova vlasništva.
Jedan od problema s vladavinom vlasništva je njegova isključiva priroda jer ne dozvoljava demokratsko odlučivanje te mnoge isključuje iz onoga što trebaju. Na primjer, ako govorimo o područjima kao što su vojne zone u Puli, ako one sad postanu vlasništvo, one postaju ekskluzivne. Građani ne samo da nemaju mogućnost profitirati od tih područja, već ni donositi odluke o njima.
Ako postanu privatno vlasništvo?
To je zasigurno točno, ako postanu privatno vlasništvo, u tom slučaju je to vrlo jasno. Međutim, ako postanu javno vlasništvo, netko bi mogao zamisliti društvo u kojem su odluke države zapravo demokratske odluke, ali trenutno su odluke države najčešće maska za privatno vlasništvo. Neoliberalna država funkcionira kao kanal, alat ili sredstvo privatnog vlasništva. Svakako ni socijalistička država nije bila demokratska. Socijalistička država je također imala veoma ograničen krug tijela ili ljudi koji su donosili odluke. Pretpostavljam da, ako smo prisiljeni birati između te dvije opcije, pokušao bih odbiti obje. Važno je reći da to nisu naše jedine mogućnosti i da trebamo stvoriti novi način upravljanja resursima.
Dakle, ne radi se o pitanju vlasništva, već o načinu organiziranja proizvodnje i upravljanja resursima koji nadilazi pojam vlasništva. Zajedno s Negrijem predlažete pomak s pojma vlasništva na pojam zajedničkog dobra.
Čini mi se značajnim koliko se široko pojam zajedničkog rasprostranjuje, čak i izrabljuje. To je na neki način ubrzala financijska kriza. To je jedan od onih koncepata koji se toliko brzo kreću da postaju zbunjujući. Ponekad sam sumnjičav oko nekih upotreba tog pojma zajedničkog koje ga promišljaju kao povratak nekoj prošloj društvenoj organizaciji, čak zamišljajući pretkapitalističko doba. To je moja prva reakcija na korištenje pojma „zajedničko“ u službi sintagme „zajednička dobra“. Pretpostavljam da moj strah nastaje kada se zajedničko definira kao odjek prošlosti, a to sa sobom nosi opasnost od preslikavanja podrazumijevanih prošlih hijerarhija. Spomenuli ste da je i komunal tradicionalni koncept, pitam se što to povlači za sobom.
Ovaj pojam se još uvijek koristi u Istri i neki prostori se i dalje opisuju kao komunal, ali u pogrdnom smislu. Na primjer, ako postoji komad zemlje o kojem se nitko ne brine i svi ga koriste kao, na primjer, odlagalište smeća, smatra se komunalom. Staro značenje tog pojma je danas nestalo jer su i institucije koje su tu zemlju prozvale komunalom nestale, ali zemlja je ostala zajednička. Mi smo krenuli razvijati taj koncept, počevši od njegove sadašnje negativne pozicije i pokušavajući na njemu graditi pozitivnu konotaciju. Možda je jedno od rješenja zadržati povijesni naziv, ali raspraviti o tome kako bi se danas moglo upravljati komunalom. Sličan je slučaj i s pojmom samoupravljanja u Jugoslaviji, modelom koji je imao svoje prednosti i nedostatke. Neki radnici u Hrvatskoj danas, poput onih u brodogradilištima, zahtijevaju samoupravljanje, ali ne zahtijevaju model koji je bio primjenjivan prije 60 godina. Ti koncepti se danas vraćaju iz zaborava i ne samo da se koriste, već se i preoblikuju.
Jedno od ključnih pitanja kod pojma „zajedničko“ je da li se proizvodnja, odnosno proizvodna suradnja, može organizirati na autonoman način. To je pitanje samoupravne tvornice, mogu li radnici sami organizirati sve aspekte proizvodnje i distribucije? Isto tako je i s prostorom, jesu li oni koji ga koriste sposobni organizirati njegovo korištenje za dobrobit svih? To je ono što su pokreti zauzimanja trgova dokazali - da su ljudi za to sposobni!
COMMON – NEW WAYS OF OPERATING RESOURCES
Sometimes the space is also used as a field to mobilize and to be visible because there is nothing else left. The media visibility is homogenous, the institutions and political parties, too, and therefore we need this “space of appearance” in order to be heard and seen. For example protesting in front of the factory gates or outside the university is necessary because inside of the building the presence is not recognized. In parallel to that, in Croatia now, after 20 years of privatization, it’s almost as if land is the only thing left to privatize. In that kind of situation our activities are mainly focused on space, land, material resources and the problems around their ownership.
One problem with the rule of property is its exclusive nature; it does not allow for democratic decision making and excludes many people from what they need. For instance if we are talking about territories like the military territories in Pula, if they now become property, they are exclusive, they are not only closed off from people to profit from, but they are also closed off from the decision making of the citizens.
If they become private property?
That is certainly true if they become private property, it’s very clear in that case. If they become public property, one could imagine the society in which the decisions of the state are actually democratic decisions, but currently the decisions of the state are really in most cases a mask for private property. The neoliberal state functions as a conduit, a handmade or an aid to private property. But certainly the socialist state, too, was, by no means, democratic. The socialist state, too, had a very limited circuit of decision making bodies or people. I guess if we are forced to choose between them, I would try to refuse them both. The point is to say that those are not our only choices and that we need to construct a new way of operating resources.
So it’s not a question of ownership, but rather of the way of organizing production and operating resources that goes beyond the notion of ownership. Negri and You suggest moving from ownership to the notion of commons?
It is remarkable to me how much that notions of the common have become widespread, even exploited. And it has been accelerated in some ways by the financial crises. It’s one of those fast moving concepts that get confused because they move so fast. I get suspicious sometimes of some uses of the common that are an imagined return to some past social organization, even an imagination of pre-capitalist time. This had been my first reaction to the commons with an “s”. I guess my fear when common is projected, as a recuperation of the old, is that it can bring, with it, assumed old hierarchies. You were mentioning to me that komunal is a traditional concept, I am wondering what comes with it.
This word is still used today in Istria and some spaces are still described as being komunal, but in a pejorative sense. For example if there is a piece of land that nobody takes care of and everybody is using it as, for example, a waste dump, it is considered to be komunal. Because the old meaning, the one from feudalism, is now lost, the institutions that proclaimed land as common had disappeared, but the land remained common. We started from that pejorative position of the traditional notion and we have been trying to detect how that concept can be developed in order to get rid of its negativity and derive a positive one. Maybe the solution would be to keep the heritage of the name, but to discuss a different model of management.
Other similar examples could be found in Yugoslavia where we had the experience of self-management, which had its benefits and its constraints. Some workers in Croatia, like those in shipyards, are now demanding a kind of self-management but they are not demanding the type that was implemented 60 years ago. Those concepts are being remembered and not just used but re-used, as in re-formed.
At least part of the problem of the notion of common in that context is whether production can be organized, or can productive cooperation be organized autonomously. That is the question of the self-managed factory: is it possible for the workers themselves to organize all the aspects of production and distribution? That would be the same with these spaces, whether those using them are capable of organizing their use to everyone's benefit. That is a kind of thing that can be demonstrated in encampment movements – that people can do it!
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Komunal in ex military zone Katarina, 2008 (Pulska grupa)
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Ali čak i ako smo svjesni da smo sposobni to učiniti, nešto nas koči. U svom radu često se fokusirate na pitanje najma kao mehanizma kojim se višak vrijednosti crpi odsvuda, čak i iz autonomno organizirane proizvodnje.
Najam je u biti crpljenje vrijednosti koja se proizvodi drugdje. Najmodavac, onaj koji prikuplja najamninu, nije uključen u proces proizvodnje, ali jednostavno od nje uzima postotak, dok nam je kapitalistička ideologija stoljećima govorila da je kapitalist, naprotiv, produktivan. Staro trojstvo tradicionalne političke ekonomije govori o tri resursa - najmu, kapitalu i radu, a u biti se kroz dvjesto godina kapitalističkog razvoja dogodio postupan pomak od najma prema kapitalu. Ono što kapitalist čini jest da ulazi u proizvodni proces, stvara proizvodne odnose, povezuje radnike i na taj način proizvodi vrijednost. To se jasno može vidjeti u radu Johna Maynarda Keynesa. On opisuje i priželjkuje "eutanaziju najmodavca", kraj tog parazitskog prisvajanja vrijednosti putem crpljenja, te slavi kapitalizam kao aktivan proces stvaranja vrijednosti. Ali, ono što se događa zadnjih desetljeća, korak je unatrag, od kapitalista prema najmodavcu. Na apstraktnom nivou, i nekretnine i financijski kapital, kao dva dominantna tipa crpljenja vrijednosti, funkcioniraju kroz najam. Tržište nekretnina crpi vrijednost pritom ne radeći ništa produktivno. Način na koji se zarađuje putem nekretnina uglavnom nije kroz poboljšanja, već jednostavno tržišnim odnosima crpljenja vrijednosti od drugih. Financijski kapital također ne sudjeluje u proizvodnom procesu, već distancirano od stvarne proizvodnje crpi iz nje vrijednost. U nekom smislu nekretnine, zajedno s financijama, postaju glavni način zarade. To nije glavni način proizvodnje vrijednosti, već je osnovni način na koji se ona crpi. S gledišta tradicionalne kapitalističke ideologije ovo je naopako jer je tradicionalna slika kapitalista ona poduzetnika koji zapravo stvara i organizira, dok najmodavac, trgovac nekretninama ili menadžer samo siše krv.
Je li to slučaj i s turizmom?
Oni koji profitiraju od turizma, hotelska industrija i slično, profitiraju od eksternalija. Karakteristično za profit u kapitalizmu je da sudjeluje u proizvodnom procesu, a ovo su sve stvari koje nisu uključene u proizvodni proces, već su izvan njega. U njih se uklapa i turizam.
I turizam se temelji na špekuliranju nekretninama, ima istu logiku. Podiže vrijednost zemljišta tako što mu nametne, na primjer, termin "atraktivno". Mi ovdje živimo u teroru atraktivnosti! Ne možeš izgraditi vrtić na atraktivnom području, ne možeš izgraditi školu iz istog razloga... Gradonačelnik Dubrovnika nedavno je izjavio, u kontekstu borbe za Srđ da je vrijednost zemljišta u Dubrovniku toliko porasla da je gradskoj upravi postalo nemoguće njime upravljati. Glavno pitanje je stoga kako izbjeći taj režim atraktivnosti.
U otporu takvom režimu nema prečaca ili spontanih radnji, takve stvari jednostavno treba organizirati, ali svakako je jasno da ljudi mogu pokrenuti takav otpor. Što se tiče toga kako se tome suprotstaviti, iako to nikako ne preporučujem, spomenuo bih korzikanski model dizanja nepoželjnih zgrada u zrak. Ako žele izgraditi luksuzni hotel, dići ćemo ga u zrak, ako žele dovesti turizam, sabotirat ćemo njihov turizam. Ovo se pokazalo kao relativno uspješan način u sprječavanju toga da Korzika postane turistički raj. Ne preporučujem takvo rješenje. Ne znam odgovor, ali to je dobro pitanje, kako se oduprijeti bespoštednoj moći novca? U SAD-u 80-ih to je napravio kokain. Vrijednost nekretnina u New Yorku nije rasla zbog cracka. Držao je vrijednost nekretnina niskom. Dakle, imate bombe i crack.
U redu, smislit ćemo nešto.
But even if we know we can do it, something is holding us back. In your work you are often focused on the issue of rent as a mechanism by which surplus value is being extracted from somewhere else, even autonomously organized production.
Rent is essentially the extraction of value that is produced elsewhere. The rentier, the one that collects rent, is not involved in productive process, but simply takes a percentage of it, whereas the capitalist ideology has told us for centuries that capitalist, in contrast, is productive. The old trinity of traditional political economy talks about three resources - rent, capital and labor, and essentially through 200 years of capitalist development there is a progressive move from rent to capital. What the capitalist does is enter into the productive process, creates relations of cooperation, brings workers together and produces value that way. You can see it clearly in the writings of John Maynard Keynes. He is either describing or wishing for the “euthanasia of the rentier”, the end of that parasitic form of value by extraction, and the celebration of the capitalist, a productive, engaged activity within the value creating process.
But, what the recent decades have seen is the move backwards, from the capitalist to the rentier. In an abstract level, both real-estate and finance, as two dominant types of extraction of value, function through rent. Real-estate generally doesn't extract value by doing anything productive. The way they make money through real-estate is generally not by making improvements, but simply by market relations of extracting value from others. Finance too is not engaged in productive process, but rather being distant from the actual production it siphons off value from the productive process. In some sense real-estate, together with finance, is becoming central way of making money. Its not a central way of producing value, it’s a central way of extracting it.
From a point of view of traditional capitalist ideology this is looked down upon, because the traditional capitalist image is an entrepreneur that actually creates and organizes and brings together, whereas the rentier, the real-estate agent, the finance CEO, sucks blood.
Is this the case with tourism also?
Those who profit from tourism, hotel industry and such - profit from externalities. There is something distinctive about capitalist profit in the engagement with a productive process, and these are all things that are not engaged with production process, but are external to them. Tourism fits into that.
It’s also based on real-estate; it has the same logic. It raises the value of land by imposing, for example, the term “attractive”. We are here living in a terror of attractiveness! You cannot build a kindergarten because it’s an attractive area, you cannot build a school for the same reason… The mayor of Dubrovnik recently said, in the midst of the fight against the privatization of a large part of the city called Srđ, that the value of land in Dubrovnik has risen so much that it has become impossible for the municipality to manage it. So, the main problem is how to escape this regime of attractiveness?
There is nothing immediate or spontaneous about these abilities, one has to organize such things, but it’s clear that people can do it. In regard to how one can confront this, I am not at all recommending this, but certainly the Corsican model has been essentially to blow things up. If they want to build the luxury hotel - we will blow up the hotel, if they want to bring tourism - we will sabotage their tourism and that has been relatively successful in Corsica at maintaining and preventing it from becoming a tourist heaven. I am not recommending that solution. I do not know the answer, but it’s a good question, how can one resist the naked power of money? In the US in the 80's cocaine did that, New York real-estate value stayed lower because of crack. It kept the real-estate value down.
So you have crack and bombs.
OK, we will figure something out…
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Imagining the waterfront beyond toursim - "Post-capitalist city" conference on Muzil 2009 (photo: Dejan Štifanić)
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BLOKIRAJMO GRAD!
Zanimljivo nam je da, zajedno s Negrijem, tvrdite da je metropolis mnoštvu ono što je tvornica bila industrijskom radniku. Zašto je metropolis toliko bitan?
Uočili smo tri paralelne veze između metropolisa i tvornice. Poput tvornice, metropolis je sada mjesto gdje proizvodimo, gdje se naš rad eksploatira i, baš poput tvornice, to je mjesto pobune. Metropolis postaje mjesto gdje su pobune moćne i produktivne. Blokada grada je stvarna prijetnja. Dok je prostor tvornice bilo mjesto proizvodnje vrijednosti, a ostatak teritorija bio je, na neki način, toj proizvodnji podređen, sada su elementi i postupak proizvodnje mnogo više rasprostranjeni urbanim teritorijem. Budući da je cjelokupni urbani teritorij postao mjestom proizvodnje, istovremeno je postao i mjestom pobune. Smatram konceptualno inspirativnim razmišljati o piqueterosima u Argentini 2001. godine koji su sami sebe čak paradoksalno definirali kao nezaposlene radnike, a potom izjavili: na koji način možemo u štrajk ako nismo radnici? Pa su umjesto blokiranja tvornice odlučili blokirati grad. Shvatili su da blokiranje grada u današnje vrijeme, isto kao što je bilo i blokiranje tvornice, istovremeno znači i blokadu proizvodnje. Ako prihvatimo ideju proizvodnje diljem cijelog teritorija metropolisa, tada se otvara i više mogućih mjesta pobune.
Također, ova promjena teritorija mijenja i zahtjeve, kao 70-ih u Italiji, kada se borba proširila iz tvornice u grad, zahtjevi i taktike su se promijenili - od borbe za plaće na one za stanovanje, smanjenje cijena komunalnih usluga, najamnina…
U klasičnim ekonomskim terminima, za koje smatram da više nisu primjenjivi, pobune se premještaju s mjesta produkcije k mjestu reprodukcije, ili kao što ste vi rekli, ono što je općenito smatrano mjestom reprodukcije - stanovi, hrana, zdravstvo, svi ti elementi sada postaju mjesta pobune. Rekao bih da više ne postoji jasna distinkcija između produkcije i reprodukcije. U nekom smislu to je teoretsko pitanje, ali ima stvarne posljedice na naše živote, stvarajući mjesta na kojima smo u mogućnosti učinkovito se pobuniti.
Ponekad opisujete te pobune kao metropolitski štrajk. Neke nama poznate pobune koje su se dogodile u Kutini ili Pučišćima na Braču, u kojima se radnička borba proširila po cijelom mjestu, mogu se usporediti s ovime. Možete li objasniti razliku između generalnog i metropolitskog štrajka?
Dosta je slično, promijenila su se jedino mjesta gdje je pobuna učinkovitija. Generalni štrajk u vrijeme Rose Luxemburg bio je zajednički štrajk radnika zaposlenih u različitim sektorima. Govoreći danas o tome, to bi trebala biti puno veća društvena blokada. U Pontecorvovom filmu "Bitka za Alžir" objavljen je štrajk, ali to nije bio samo radnički štrajk, radnicima se pridružilo društvo u cjelini i svi su odbijali prekinuti štrajk. Dakle, metropolitski štrajk zapravo je vrlo radikalno, generalno neodobravanje. Takva protivljenja ne zahtijevaju nužno apsolutnu blokadu budući da bi bilo vrlo teško organizirati da svatko zaustavi svoj društveni život. Ono što može naštetiti trenutnom sistemu su brojne različite vrste pobuna.
Za nas je najvažnije pitanje kako takva vrsta pobune unutar grada može postati stvaralačkom snagom koja ga može transformirati, kako možemo neodobravanje pretvoriti u stvaranje?
Jasno je da jedno ne ide bez drugoga. Samo odbijanje ne vodi nikamo. Također, smatram da pobune mora pratiti produktivnost, čak eksperimenti koje ste spominjali. U Puli se, na primjer, ne može raditi samo o pukom protivljenju prodaji teritorija jednom developeru koji želi sagraditi vile za bogataše, već pobunu treba kombinirati s prakticiranjem alternativnih načina korištenja prostora.
PICKET THE CITY!
We are very interested in a phrase that you and Negri coined that the metropolis is to the multitude what the factory was to the industrial worker. Why is metropolis so important?
We saw three parallel relationships between the metropolis and the factory. Like the factory, the metropolis is now a place where we produce, where our efforts are exploited and like the factory it is a site of rebellion. The metropolis now is becoming a site where rebellions are powerful and productive. To block the city is a real threat. Whereas the site of the factory was the site of the production of value and all the territories outside it were in some sense subsidiary to the production in a factory, now the elements and acts of productivity are much more spread throughout the urban territory. Because it’s the site of production, it’s also a site of rebellion.
I find conceptually inspiring thinking of piqueteros in Argentina in 2001 where they even defined themselves paradoxically as unemployed workers, and then they said: how can we go on strike if we are not workers? So, they decided that instead of picketing the factory, they would picket the city, and if they block the city they found that in the same way that blocking the factory was forcing their enemy to deal with it, in that same sense, today, blocking the city means blocking production. So if one is to accept this notion of productivity over the whole territory of metropolis then it opens more possible sites of rebellion.
That shift of territory also changes the demands, as in Italy in the 70s when the struggle sprawled from the factory into the city the demands and tactics also changed from the fight for wages to the fight for housing, the reduction of price for communal services as well as rent.
It’s true in the classical economic terms, which I think are no more exact, the revolts are moving from the site of production to the site of reproduction, or like you are saying, what is generally thought as a site of reproduction - flats, food, healthcare, all these elements are now becoming the sites of rebellion.
I would say that there is no longer a clear distinction between production and reproduction. In some sense that is a theoretical question, but it does have the real consequences on our lives by creating sites in which we are able to rebel effectively.
You sometimes describe these rebellions as the metropolitan strike. Some revolts we know about, that happened in the town of Kutina and in Pučišća on the island of Brač in which workers struggle spread all over their city, can be compared to this. Maybe you could explain the difference between the general and the metropolitan strike?
It is quite similar, it’s just what is changed are the sites of refusal that are effective. The general strike in the time of Rosa Luxemburg was the wage workers in different sectors striking together. When we think of it now, it has to be a much broader social halt. In the Pontecorvo`s film “Battle of Algiers” they called a strike and it was not just a workers strike, but the entire society came to a halt and everyone refused to go out. So, metropolitan strike is a really radically general refusal. Such refusal doesn't necessarily require an absolute blockage, because that would be very hard thing to organize that everyone stops social life. What can be detrimental to current system is a number of different kinds of refusals.
The most important question for us is - how can that kind of rebellion inside the city become a creative force which can transform it, how can we move from refusal to creation?
The obvious thing is that the one doesn't go without the other. That simply refusing does not lead to anything. I also think that refusals have to be accompanied with productiveness, even experiments that you are already talking about. In Pula, for example, it’s not only about refusing that this territory be sold to a developer who wants to make villas for rich people, but that refusal has to be combined with demonstrating alternative uses.